I got to find a way to fill the space in time
I got to find a way to fill the space in time…

La la land
Is where I need to be
La la land
Is the place that, oh, sets me free_______(from 'La La Land' by Green Velvet)

Project has commissioned Paul O’Neill to curate the exhibition ‘La La Land’ which brings together a range of international contemporary practice.

La La Land proposes an experimental approach to exhibition making based on the curator’s extensive research in this area. It is an exhibition without a theme as a much as a series of contradictions. It is a show about being out of it, beyond a theme, beyond the exhibition as a unifying structure. La La Land advocates a lack of cohesion. The works have their own internal logic and have been selected not for their similarities but for their differences so that each takes on a particular role within the spectrum of the whole. And while they are situated in the gallery and carefully designed for the different planes of the space, they exit the gallery by consciously referring to an elsewhere. For example:

FLOOR
Liam Gillick’s ‘Discussion Island Preparation Zone’ consists of a mixture of glitter, vodka and water used to wash down the gallery space in preparation for the exhibition. It conjures up the atmosphere of déclassé glamour and sociability of a disco.

WALLS
Ronan McCrea’s temporary street architecture ‘Hoarding,’ is placed into the white cube and becomes the replacement wall for Jaime Gili’s selection of artists’ fly-posters. Lothar Götz’s bright geometric wall paintings mimic the ambitious scale of public murals; and the array of pin heads stuck into David Blamey’s mounted ‘Celestial Notice Boards’ read like the starry sky at night.

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CEILING
Meanwhile up above, the ceiling is turned into an area of free form pattern and decoration by Kathrin Böhm’s pasted up posters. From her on-going project 'millions and millions', Böhm will select posters from her enormous archive of prints to produce a slight intervention in the gallery that is both pictorial collage and spatial transformation.

ARCHIVE
Other works in the exhibition exit the space via the detailed cataloguing of an ‘elsewhere’ that forms the subject of archive. So, the curatorial duo, B&B, present an extensive compendium of practice, a cumulative library of artist material displayed within an unusual structure. Valley Vibes, a recording and broadcasting device conceived by Jeanna van Heeswijk, operated by Amy Plant and containing years of audio material, will be available in the gallery potentially to perform both functions.

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For more press information on the show, please contact Doireann Gillan on 01.8819 608 or email Doireann@project.ie

Paul O’Neill is an independent curator, artist, lecturer and writer currently based in London. He is interested in addressing the systems of interpretation that are involved in making sense of the world around us, and the compulsions that lead to interpretation and meaning itself. He was Gallery Curator at londonprintstudio Gallery (2001-2003), where he curated Private Views, Frictions, A Timely Place..., Phil Collins Jumble Sale and All That is Solid. Paul is also co-director of MultiplesX which has presented at the ICA, London; Temple Bar Gallery and Project, Dublin; Ormeau Baths, Belfast; Glassbox, Paris and The Lowry, Manchester. He has curated over 40 exhibitions and projects including Coalesce: The Remix, at Redux, London; Tonight at Studio Voltaire, London, (2004) Coalesce: With All Due Intent at Model and Niland Art Gallery, Sligo (2004) and touring to K3 Gallery, Zurich in 2005 and Are We There Yet?, at Glassbox in Paris. As an artist, he has exhibited internationally and is currently a PhD scholar at Middlesex University, researching potential histories of curating as a critical and professional practice. He writes regularly for journals and magazines including Art Monthly Everything, the Future, Space & Culture Journal and CIRCA.